


Reawaken

by holdenscoffee (spacebarista)



Category: The Expanse (TV)
Genre: Accidental Cuddling, F/M, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Post-Eros, Sharing a Bed, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-17
Updated: 2016-08-17
Packaged: 2018-08-09 09:47:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7797082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacebarista/pseuds/holdenscoffee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Safely back on Tycho, Naomi convinces Holden to get some rest, and lets herself rest in the process.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reawaken

**Author's Note:**

> This was a fill for an anonymous non-sexual intimacy prompt on tumblr, "Naomi and Holden accidentally falling asleep together". As per usual, the prompt got a bit away from me. I hope I didn't disappoint my nonny. 
> 
> This was difficult to finish, as my computer crashed while I was writing it on vacation. I wanted to get more done but now it looks like I may be even slower. I hope to have more out as soon as I can. 
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading! I hope you enjoy it, and please review if you can!

Naomi wakes up slowly. She doesn’t remember going to bed, falling asleep. All she knows is that she’s waking up. She’s warm. Comfortable. Whatever she’s lying on is warm and comfortable. She breathes in, breathes out. Breathes in, breathes out. A clean, subtly spicy scent tickles her nose. A hint of something… chemical or electrical. She can almost place it. It’s right there on the edge of her consciousness. But she can’t reach it. Instead she just keeps breathing it in. It’s nice. It’s nice and she wants to hold onto it. Eyes stay closed. Breathe in, breathe out.

How did she get here?

Tycho. She remembers Tycho. Rushing to Tycho from… Eros.

Oh, God. _Eros_.

 _Holden_.

She remembers the anxiety of waiting for him, the relief and fear at seeing Amos dragging him into the ops deck. His bloodstained lips and dented armor. He’d fought like hell to get back to the _Roci_. And for the first hours, Naomi had feared he’d fought like hell to get back only to die there. Like Lopez on the _Donnager_.

She had tried not to think about what would have happened if Sematimba had shot her. If Amos hadn’t changed his mind about leaving Holden behind despite her promise to him.

If they’d left Holden to die at the docks.

But they’d hadn’t. He’d made it. He’d lived. Turns out Holden is a tough asshole. Not many men can survive having their organs start liquefying.

He’d spent much of the trip back to Tycho asleep, recovering. Naomi recalled him having trouble sleeping before the _Cant_ went down. She’d run into him many times in his supposed sleep shift. He’d wander the halls, coffee clutched in his hand and deep voice further thickened with exhaustion. They’d been out of sleep aids for a week—Amos had needed them too. The stress of everything after—his curiosity, his responsibility, his guilt—couldn’t have helped. She’d been grateful he’d been getting the rest he needed. Worried, but grateful. And the second they’d arrived on station, she’d accompanied him—and Miller—to the station doctors.

Naomi shifts, sighs. Whatever she’s sleeping on is warm, solid. And still smells good. She’s almost tempted to bury her nose in it. Something stops her. She reaches for it, the reason that will click everything together. She blinks her eyes open, and the answer is right in front of her.

Holden. She’s sleeping on Holden’s shoulder.

Hours of testing and poking and prescribing had worn Holden out. He’d still had to debrief Fred Johnson on what happened to Lionel Polanski—Julie Mao. By the time they could finally leave, he‘d looked dead on his feet and far too pale. She should have sent him off with the men, to the suite they’d elected to share so she could have her own. But before she could think otherwise, she’d taken his arm and pulled him alongside her. _He won’t sleep if he goes with them_ , she had rationalized. _He needs somewhere quiet. Needs to rest._ With the other men, he’d just have a coffee and discuss Eros, discuss their next moves, the plan to go after those who released whatever did that to those people. And they’d let him.

Naomi wouldn’t. She couldn’t have. She couldn’t have let him continue carrying this weight on his shoulders. To make it heavier with her own accusations. Not anymore.

And he’d gone with her.

She should move. Her head rests on the shoulder of her sleeping former superior, her “Acting XO”. Not that it really matters now. Still. How might he react if he wakes and finds her here?

Naomi hadn’t fallen asleep like this, that’s for sure. She remembers bringing him into the suite, leading him right to the bedroom. She’d expected a crack from the known flirt. But he hadn’t said a word. He’d just let her tell him where to go. So she’d gotten him into bed, pulled the blanket over him, watched him fall asleep in a matter of minutes despite his half-hearted protestations. It had been almost difficult to understand his slurring words.

She remembers sitting on the other side of the bed, sending a quick message to Amos that Holden was with her. Remembers assuring him that Holden was asleep. She can’t remember if that was more for his comfort or hers. Then she’d yawned. She hadn’t gotten much sleep herself, keeping an eye on Miller and Holden. On Holden and his vitals. On getting them all to Tycho Station alive.

She’d looked over at the sleeping man on the other side of the bed. Looked at the stark contrast of his dark hair and stubble against his nearly white skin. The fading shadows under his eyes. He’d been sleeping like the dead the entire trip to Tycho. He’d never notice if she took a quick nap beside him. So she’d laid down and let her eyes close.

It must have been more than a quick nap. And she must have slipped closer to him in her sleep. Shifted her head onto his shoulder in her sleep. She’s always been one to seek out warmth where she could find it. Holden, despite looking like death, is _very_ warm.

And her head is still on his shoulder.

Naomi hasn’t been a woman of risk in years. The deaths of the _Cant_ and the _Donnager_ and Eros Station had changed all that. She’d argued against risk as many times as she could. Then risked her life and the lives of Amos, Alex, and Holden countless times so they could all survive. This decision isn’t life or death, not this time. So… why not risk holding still just a _little_ longer? She watches the steady rise and fall of his chest before tipping her head up to breathe him in just a little more.

Naomi feels like the silly little girl she’d been once. For the first time in a long time, she lets herself revel in it. After… after everything, she’d done her best not to get close to anyone. Amos is different. He never seems to want anything from her but her trust and some odd sense of approval. He never asks about where she comes from and rarely lets details about himself slip either. He’s a presence she appreciates, a voice of support she’d come to rely on.

But… whatever it is she’s doing here, whatever is keeping her lying beside James Holden—the near insufferable Earther who had a habit of annoying her on the _Cant_ , who had argued with her at every turn since the ice hauler’s destruction—is different. She can’t say if it’s good or bad. Not yet. She just knows it’s something she’s not had in years. So while her logical brain tells her to move, move before he wakes up and she has to think about what’s going on, everything else tells her to relax. To let herself feel something. To let herself—

Holden hums low in his throat and Naomi straightens, swings her legs off the side of the bed to turn away from him. She curses herself. For staying on his shoulder so long, for reacting like she’d been caught doing something bad, for napping next to him at all. For acting like the young Naomi she left behind. She pulls out her hand terminal, keeps her face down until the heat in her cheeks pass. Holden doesn’t even shift and she curses herself again. It had been for nothing.

It’s another few minutes before he groans, before the bed creaks beneath him as he turns onto his side. She feels his eyes on her back.

“Naomi?” His deep voice is rough with sleep and her name comes out almost as one syllable. It sends a shiver down her spine. She's vaguely embarrassed by it.

“Yeah, Holden?” She glances over her shoulder at him. He's squinting at her from the pillow. She can see the sleep clouding his eyes, the confusion painting his face. There had been times on the _Cant_ where Naomi had noted just how young Holden could look. Clean shaven, the man could pass for twenty. In his sleepy, almost out of it state… He looks too young to be the man he is. She softens her tone. “Are you alright?”

Holden blinks at her like he needs time to register her question. She gives him the time he needs, resisting the urge lie back down with him and stroke his hair until he falls asleep again. He's drawing out more of her buried feelings and instincts than she’d care to admit. Naomi tries not to squirm under his unwavering gaze. Intense somehow through the fog of sleep. He hums to himself, closes his eyes and saves her.

“Getting there. Feel like I could sleep another twenty years.”

Naomi snorts, grins. She reaches over to adjust the blanket on him. “Take it easy. Someone has to make the coffee.”

His chuckle is weak, a short rumble in his chest. The quirk of his lips is unmistakeable. “Yeah, well… You'd be fine without me.”

“Hm… No sé,” she whispers, shifting one leg up on the bed to turn back to him. “Who'd make all those big tough man decisions? _Amos_?”

“God, no,” he groans, laughing again. “He'd shoot the problem in the face.” His teasing tone lifts a strange weight off her chest. He opens one eye, fixes it on her face. “I'd trust you with the decision-making. You're the smartest of us all.”

Naomi's grin turns shy, and she ducks her head to hide behind the fringe of her hair. “Well… You aren’t _wrong_ …”

Holden smiles, stifles a yawn. “Yeah. For once.”

Naomi lets her grin slip, her brows draw together. _No… That joke isn't funny_. “Hey,” she starts, leaning close to his face. She doesn't realize she’s touching him until she sees his widened eyes, his parted lips. Her hand rests on his cheek, his stubble rough against her palm. Her heart hammers in her chest. Why? “You've done the best you could, Jim. Every time. We can be hard on you but we wouldn't have survived without you either. You've done good, sa sa?”

As he'd done earlier, Holden blinks up at her. The emotion in his eyes is different though. Different, but not unfamiliar. It's the same as the look he'd given her on the Roci as she’d cared for him after Eros. Affection, wonder… awe. She doesn't deserve any of it. But it warms her heart and starts a fluttering in her belly and she revels in it. He takes a breath.

“You… You've never called me by my name before,” he mutters. The surprise —and barely masked joy—slips out in his voice. “I hear you, Naomi… I just… This feels like a dream. I must be dreaming.”

Naomi's smile returns, her thumb subconsciously brushes over his cheekbone. She lets it. “Like you said before. Strange times.” He snorts and yawns, not bothering to stifle it this time. “Go back to sleep. I'll order you some food and make some coffee for when you wake up, yeah?”

Holden hums, eyes closing again. “That sounds nice. Definitely a dream.” He takes a few long, deep breaths. His face relaxes, de-ages again before her eyes as he falls back to sleep. She's about to pull away, take her hand from his warm face when—“Thanks for staying with me, Naomi. ‘Preciate it.”

Holden’s asleep before she can ask him what he means. If he knows that Naomi had slept on him. A calm settles over her, and she realizes she doesn't care. It wouldn't matter. It wouldn't change anything that isn't already changing. She watches him sleep, her thumb still brushing over the ridge of his cheek. Soothing him. Part of her wants to lie back down and doze with him, or keep an eye on him.

It's a few more minutes before she pulls her hand away, stands and leaves the bedroom. She’d promised him coffee. She plans to deliver. Naomi Nagata, for the first time in all the years they've worked together, wants to please James Holden.

And Naomi no longer minds.


End file.
